Packaged pet food of novel appearance

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is a packaged pet food product that includes one or more solid food components in a sauce or gel, wherein said solid food components are placed separately in a package having a single cavity for receiving pet food material, and wherein said solid food components are maintained in visually discrete groups within said cavity.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to the field of commercial pet food manufacture.In particular it relates to packaged pet food products that have a noveland desirable visual function.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Food manufacturers, including commercial canned pet food manufacturers,are continuously challenged to find ways to present an appetizing andauthentic food product at minimized raw material costs. A product formatof particular popularity for its ability to evoke the aesthetics of ahuman food casserole is the ‘chunks in sauce’ format. This involveschunks of solid food material, including meat, or more commonly meatanalogue, and optionally including vegetable material, either in runnygravy or in a solid or semi-solid gel. The gravy or gel may betransparent or opaque.

The aesthetic desirability of such products depends greatly on theappearance of the analogue material—its size, shape, texture etc., andany other food materials included. For example, the inclusion ofvegetable material provides both ‘real food’ aesthetic cues to the petfoods, as well as a variety of food color and particle size that givesthe overall pet food product a heightened aesthetic appeal.

However, to date the design and manufacture of such products has meantthat the visual impact of such ingredients has not been maximized.Generally, these products are formed by the blending together of thegravy material and the solid food materials in a mixer, followed byfilling this blend into the package, whether that be a traditionalcylindrical steel can, a square aluminum or plastic tray or any othersuitable form of packaging.

As defined herein, packaged pet foods include those in cans, trays(aluminum, plastic, etc), pouches and similar rigid or semi-rigidcontainers suitable for holding moist and semi-moist food products,including liquid gravies.

As the aesthetic impact of such foods is most directly observedimmediately upon opening the package, it becomes necessary to includesufficient of the most visually effective components in the mix in veryhigh proportions in order to ensure that there will be a sufficientlyvisible presence of these components at the upper surface of thepackage. As these components, such as the vegetables, are often the mostcostly parts of the product, it is clear that the pet food manufacturerdoes not obtain maximum product aesthetic value for the relativeformulation cost expended on these materials.

In addition, as the pet food must be blended in commercial scale foodmixers, such as ribbon- or paddle-blenders, each of the solid foodcomponents must be sufficiently robust to survive the shear andcompression forces that tend to be applied to materials in suchoperations. This tends to preclude the use of more aestheticallypleasing component designs, such as relatively thin slices of meat ormeat analogue, as they also tend to be more susceptible to degradationduring mixing.

Therefore, it is desired to develop product formats that overcome theseconstraints and enhance presentation of the food product. In the priorart relating to human food, it is known to provide ‘compartmented’packages, e.g. the familiar ‘TV-dinner’ type presentation, whereindividual ingredient are filled into individual compartments in thepackage. Another example are the ‘breakfast yoghurt’ packages, where themoist yoghurt is compartmented separately from e.g. dry ingredients suchas nuts, to avoid moisture degradation of the dry ingredients duringstorage. The consumer is then required to mix the two componentstogether before use.

However, such formats are typically not applicable to commercial petfood production, as the packaging materials themselves are often toocostly to be commercially feasible in such a low-cost base marketsegment. Equally, where the pet owner is really looking for ahuman-style ‘casserole’ product, where all of the components are cookedtogether, the desire is for a high level of convenience in foodhandling. Consequently, the pet owner will not favor a product formatthat requires inconvenient mixing prior to feeding to the animal.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a premiumpackaged pet food product that maximizes the visual impact of itshigh-cost components while allowing easy dispensing of the food by thepet owner.

According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a packagedpet food product that includes one or more solid food components in asauce or gel, wherein said solid food components are placed separatelyin a package having a single cavity for receiving pet food material, andwherein said solid food components are maintained in visually discretegroups within said cavity.

The advantage of this presentation is that where, for example, one ofthe components consists of diced vegetables, the diced vegetables arenot obscured by the other component or components.

A further advantage of the invention is that as the components are notphysically blended, it is possible to utilize more delicate ingredientsin the pet food.

A still further advantage of the invention over the prior art is that asthe components are held within the same cavity in the package, there isno need to separately mix the ingredients together prior to packagefilling.

An added benefit of this arrangement over the compartmentalized priorart is that where one of the components is relatively less palatablethan another component, the flavors of the more palatable component willtend to infuse the less palatable component, thereby improving itspalatability and reducing the likelihood that it will be ‘left behind’,as may happen with e.g. vegetables.

Advantageously, the package will be a relatively flat can or tray,thereby providing greater surface area per unit pet food volume,maximizing the visual impact of each of the components. Preferably, thepackage has a width to depth ratio of at least 3:1.

In a particularly preferred embodiment, there is included a first solidfood component that is a meat or meat analogue food product, and furthersolid food components selected from a group including vegetables, riceand pasta. The meat or meat analogue product may include poultry, beef,pork, fish etc, a sauce or gel serving to embed the meat pieces in asavory matrix. The same sauce may also be used to moisten the othersolid food pieces, or alternatively a differently flavored sauce or gelmay be used.

The sauce or gel incorporated in the pet food product may be based onany one of a number of materials that are well known in the art for thispurpose, including but not limited to gelatinized starches such as waxymaize starch, hydrated gums such as carrageenan, locust bean andxanthan, or other materials such as agar agar. Dairy based sauces mayalso find use.

The nature of the invention will be further explained using a specific,non-limiting example of a canned pet food product of superior aestheticappeal and which is in accordance with the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic flow diagram of a process for preparing aproteinaceous meat analogue.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Firstly, a beef steak analogue product was prepared. The overallformulation of the product is given in Table 1. TABLE 1 Ingredient mass% Fibrous Proteinaceous 40 Extruded Chunk Mechanically De-boned Approx.Chicken Meat (MDM) 50 Binders, 3 Water 7 Red Iron Oxide 0.02

The fibrous extruded material was obtained as per the formulation andprocess described in WIPO patent document no. WO 00/69276 by Effem FoodsPty Ltd. For this application, it was shredded to an approximate sizecorresponding to the ranges: height range from 0.5-10 mm, width rangefrom 5-30 mm, length range from 20-80 mm.

The analogue was prepared according to the process flow shown in FIG. 1.Firstly, the water, binders and red iron oxide are mixed in a high-speedliquid mixer. The binders serve to hold the structure of the analoguetogether, while red iron oxide provides an authentic color to theanalogue. The chicken MDM was ground in a Weiler-type meat grinderhaving a hole plate size in the range 2-10 mm.

Then the mixed liquid, the ground meat and the extruded material weretransferred to a horizontal paddle blender and mixed until relativelyhomogeneous.

This mixture was then filled into steel casings, preferably having arectangular cross-section of about 50 mm by 100 mm. It will beappreciated by those skilled in the art that any desirable shape andsize may be used. The filling was accomplished via a vacuum filler ofthe type commonly used in small goods manufacturing. The filled andsealed casings were placed on retort racks and thermally processed in aretort at a temperature of 95° C. for approximately 60 minutes. Thethermal processing causes the protein matrix present in the mix todenature and thereby bind the extruded chunk. The thermal processingalso tends to reduce the likelihood that further material will beexpressed by the analogue as it is further processed during thesterilization of the canned products in which it is to be included,causing ‘cook-out’ cloudiness in the sauce.

After thermal processing, and optional chilled storage, the casing wasremoved and the analogue material was cut to a size of on average 22 mmwidth, 48 mm length and 4 to 5 mm. These slices were collected in stacksof seven. These stacks were then rolled back at an angle ofapproximately 45°, in order to present the appearance from above ofmutually overlapping layers of sliced meat, as per the slices of asliced loaf of bread that are allowed to fall over by gravity, i.e. ashingle-like, stacked appearance.

These ‘shingled’ stacks were then picked up and placed into an aluminumretort tray of approximately square shape. The approximate size of thetray is 85 mm×85 mm×25 mm. The approximate mass of meat analogue addedto the tray is approximately 35-45 g. The arrangement and placing of themeat analogue is such that it covers approximately 75% of the area ofthe tray base. This meat analogue material formed the first solid foodcomponent of the pet food product, and was placed in the tray such thatit covered a single, continuous, predetermined area of the base of thetray, while leaving the remainder of the base of the tray as acontinuous uncovered portion.

Vegetable material was then added to the remaining 25% uncovered portionof the tray base. This vegetable material formed the second solid foodcomponent according to the invention. This component providednutritional cues and further enhanced the appearance of the product.This vegetable material was diced to approximately 6 mm×6 mm×6 mm, andwas selected to include solely or commingled carrot, roma beans, yellowcapsicum, broccoli and potato. Other suitable vegetable materials may beused if desired. The total vegetable inclusion in the tray wasapproximately 7% by mass.

Separately, gravy was prepared having a composition given in Table 2.TABLE 2 Ingredient mass % Tapioca Starch 3.1 Guar gum 0.8 Water 96.1

This gravy was made up in a high speed liquid mixer of the kind verywell-known in the art. This gravy was then added to the tray to make upthe mass of product to approximately 100 g.

The tray was then sealed and retorted to achieve commercial sterility.

Upon opening, both the overlapping meat analogue slices, resemblingpremium steak that has been carefully sliced and carefully placed in thetray, and the diced vegetable material were immediately obvious andvisually impressive, giving the overall product a highly pleasing andappetizing appearance that is prized by the customers of premium petfood products. It will be noted by those skilled in the art thatvegetable inclusion levels of 10-15% by mass are normally too low toprovide such an aesthetic appearance in prior art pet food productformats, e.g. casserole-style products and that relatively thin slicesof meat analogue material would typically be severely degraded if suchwere included in the mixture filled into a can using known fillingequipment.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that otherspecifically arranged pet food products, having a wide variety ofconfigurations of meat and other inclusions, may be produced inaccordance with the invention.

1. A packaged pet food product comprising: two or more solid food components in a sauce or gel, wherein said solid food components are placed separately in a relatively flat can or tray having a single cavity for receiving pet food material, and wherein said solid food components are maintained in visually discrete groups within said cavity.
 2. The pet food product of claim 1, wherein said can or tray has a width to depth ratio of at least 3:1.
 3. The pet food product of claim 1, further comprising a first solid food component that is a meat or meat analogue food product substantially derived from one or more materials selected from a group consisting of bovines, ovines, porcines, poultry and fish; and one or more further solid food components selected from a group consisting of vegetables, rice and pasta.
 4. The pet food product of claim 3, wherein said solid components are surrounded by a sauce or gel serving to embed the meat pieces in a savoury matrix.
 5. The pet food product of claim 4, wherein said gel or sauce contains flavoring agents.
 6. The pet food product of claim 4, wherein said gel or sauce is substantially comprised of water and one or more materials selected from a group consisting of starch, vegetable gums and agar agar.
 7. A method of producing a packaged pet food product, the method comprising the steps of: providing a package in the shape of a relatively flat can or tray, and having a single cavity for receiving pet food material; and placing solid food components separately in visually discrete groups within said cavity.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein said packaged pet food product includes two or more solid food components in a sauce or gel, wherein one solid food component is a meat or meat analogue food product substantially derived from one or more materials selected from a group consisting of bovines, ovines, porcines, poultry and fish; and one or more further solid food components are selected from a group consisting of vegetables, rice and pasta.
 9. (canceled)
 10. (canceled) 